Theorizing Difference: Voices from the Margins

Theorists of widely different persuasions are making serious efforts to understand difference and to bring the concerns and ideals of others within the reach of intellectual and political visions. Yet this attention to difference continues to be examined almost entirely through precise, rigorous, and sophisticated theoretical language. This is only appropriate if we presume that this language, the language-of-theory, is able to represent—and serve as the master interpreter of—all ideas and ideals, all senses of self and politics. I believe that this presumption is deeply flawed. Theoretical language passes over and distorts the differences it would understand. Theory more attentive to difference needs to gain access to the meanings that circulate within different lives, especially as reflected in literary writing of those who, themselves, speak and write from sites of difference.